Shrinking Colorado undecided voter panel gives Obama edge

President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney participate in the third and final presidential debate, moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS, at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., Oct. 22, 2012. (Emmanuel Dunand, AFP/Getty Images)

President Obama's debate performance Monday won points with a small handful of undecided voters in swing-state Colorado.

By the end of the debate season, a panel of 15 undecided voters assembled by The Denver Post had dwindled to four people willing to watch Tuesday's debate in Boca Raton, Fla.

All of them gave Obama the edge for the final debate, and two of them said they had decided to vote for Obama.

"I was blown away by how much Romney agreed with Obama," Lynne Mark, 63, of Centennial, a self-employed unaffiliated voter. "In the run-up to the debate, Mr. Romney didn't sound like he agreed as much. ... He did what he could to get through it, but he didn't add much value."

Mark said she had not yet made up her mind. "I'm getting closer," she said. "I don't know if I'm happy, but I'm getting closer."

The Post assembled a panel of undecided metro-area voters to watch and analyze the first debate at the University of Denver on Oct. 3. Eight of them continued to watch for last week's second debate.

Colorado remains a statistical toss-up ahead of the Nov. 6 election.

Not for Natalie Bui, 24, an unaffiliated voter from Aurora. She said the debate helped her reach a labored decision to vote for Obama.

"I think both candidates did very well, and their ideas sounded very similar," she said. "However I didn't agree with Governor Romney in that he equated strength with military aggression. I agree more with President Obama that strength is something we build here in our own country."

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Nick Miller, a 31-year-old retail manager from of Westminster and a former Republican who is now unaffiliated, called the final debate disappointing.

"Both candidates were bashing each other," he said. "I payed more attention to Obama rather than Romney because I need to hear why I should consider re-electing him as president. Obama is a great speaker, and he talks like he's doing such a great job. He has no sense of urgency when it comes to the problems we are having in the United States economy.

"I do think Romney might be right about the lack of leadership causing problems in the Middle East," Miller said.

Democrat Ian Holtz, 35, of southeast Aurora also gave the debate mostly to the president.

"It was impressive to see Obama stand up for himself on foreign policy and act presidential when he was talking about about the steps and the strategy he's taken," Holtz said. "He really showed some leadership, which I haven't seen him do in previous debates. It was also interesting to see what Romney brought to the table on various issues, like Iran and Libya.

"At the same time on some of the more difficult questions, like what he would have done differently in Syria, Romney seemed to be agreeing with what the president had done."

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